i’ll chisel your face till you look like the woman of my dreams by Flourish Joshua

— for Bimbo Sesan
In the beginning, I was an
imbecile every Sunday,
grinning mouthfuls of maize
from the tickles of a butterfly's joke.
Your body was (& still is) a new
testament where i was a diligent
apostle of the members of your body.
I am fond of dreaming of
a shy fire—the one that swallows
up brave hearts. I like to dream
of a continent of virgins,
where your body is a country
with my name stuck in its
throat like a rude bone.
as the dean of my thinking faculty,
i’ll chisel your face till you look like
the woman of
my dreams.
Flourish Joshua (he/him) is a poet from Nigeria. A NaiWA poetry scholar and second runner-up of the 7th Ngozi Agbo Prize for Essay Writing. He's a BellaNaija Contributor, Managing Editor at NRB and on the editorial board at Frontier Poetry Journal. He tweets @fjspeaks.